Cartels: Conspiracies in Restraint of Trade

After Losing Money for 17 straight years, in 1976 California orange grower Jacques Giddens finally sent a bumper crop to market. He was immediately
hauled into court, charged with shipping too many oranges.

Giddens had exceeded a marketing quota set by the Navel Orange Administration Committee and enforced by the federal government. When Giddens exceeded
his quota-less than 66 per cent of his crop-he was breaking the law.

"Right now I've got 13 acres of unpicked oranges sitting out there," Giddens said, "but I won't get anything for them because they're beginning
to freeze. I can't pick them because I've already filled my quota, and there's no way to store oranges except leave them on the trees. In three
more weeks they'll be junk.

Actually, I don't mind a bit of market regulation, and like manpower planning it can lead to efficiencies which might otherwise be unavailable
because the regulators have useful information that is not available to the individual producer.

But, as a rule, for a supposedly free enterprise country which lets markets speak for themselves, the US has more tarriffs and more insane protections
than any other economy in the world. Not only that, but the application of them is hypocritical to the Nth degree.

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